Space for all - pp229

doi:10.1038/ngeo496

The exploration of the Solar System is an expensive endeavour. The more nations engage in peaceful planetary research the better.

Full text - Information storage | PDF (139KB) - Information storage

Back to the Moon pp234 - 236

Paul Spudis

doi:10.1038/ngeo481

Since the end of the Apollo era, the Moon has received relatively little attention from planetary scientists. Fresh interest from a new range of nations could lead to insights into our satellite's evolution and resources.

Full text -Fishing the Fermi sea | PDF (425KB) - Fishing the Fermi sea

Did an impact blast away half of the martian crust? pp412 - 414

H. J. Melosh

doi:10.1038/ngeo237

The northern and southern hemispheres of Mars are topographically distinct. Crustal thickness analyses and numerical simulations suggest a giant impact just after the crust differentiated 4.4 billion years ago as a plausible cause for this dichotomy.

Full text -Fishing the Fermi sea | PDF (407KB) - Fishing the Fermi sea

Mercury Redux pp564

Mortitz Heimpel & Konstantin Kabin

doi:10.1038/ngeo297

In January 2008, 33 years after Mariner 10 flew past the solar system's innermost planet, MESSENGER crossed Mercury's magnetosphere. Ancient volcanoes, contractional faults, and a rich soup of exospheric ions give clues to Mercury's structure and dynamical evolution.

Full text -Fishing the Fermi sea | PDF (273KB) - Fishing the Fermi sea

Beyond water on Mars - pp231 - 233

John Grotzinger

doi:10.1038/ngeo480

Mars exploration has been guided by the search for water. The more complex quest by Mars Science Laboratory for habitable environments should illuminate the Martian environmental history, and possibly deliver insights into extraterrestrial life.

Full text - Integrated nanoelectronics for the future | PDF (348KB) - Integrated nanoelectronics for the future

A mega-landslide on Mars - pp248 - 249

Jeff Andrews-Hanna

doi:10.1038/ngeo483

The vast Thaumasia plateau on Mars is fringed by extensive zones of deformation. Topographic and structural analysis suggests that the plateau may have slipped in a massive landslide, deforming its margins in the process.

Full text - Integrated nanoelectronics for the future | PDF (206KB) - Integrated nanoelectronics for the future

Biology meets astronomy - pp237

Ellen Stofan

doi:10.1038/ngeo482

Astrobiology, the study of life in the Solar System and beyond, is a relatively new field that seeks to answer a very old and fundamental question: where did we come from? Robert Jastrow (an astronomer) and Michael Rampino (an Earth scientist) have now taken a comprehensive look at astrobiology in an accessible, well-written text aimed at undergraduate students who do not pursue science as a principal subject.

Full text - Integrated nanoelectronics for the future | PDF (116KB) - Integrated nanoelectronics for the future

Heavenly Rinds - pp237 - 238

W. Bruce Banerdt

doi:10.1038/ngeo487

Comprising a planet's outermost portion, the crust is by far its most accessible part, and in the case of Earth it is of critical importance to sustaining life. However, the bewildering array of worlds in the Solar System means that in spite of this accessibility, a coherent understanding of crusts of the solid planets has not yet emerged. In their treatise, S. Ross Taylor and Scott McLennan have attempted to systematically survey the available evidence and current theory for crustal formation in all the observed bodies in the Solar System, and to construct a framework for understanding their diversity.

Full text - Integrated nanoelectronics for the future | PDF (171KB) - Integrated nanoelectronics for the future

Brucite and carbonate assemblages from altered olivine-rich materials on Ceres - pp258 - 261

Ralph E. Milliken and Andrew S. Rivkin

doi:10.1038/ngeo478

The mineralogy of the dwarf planet Ceres has long remained uncertain. The infrared spectral features of this planetary body are indicative of minerals derived from the aqueous alteration of olivine-rich materials, suggesting that Ceres is not represented by any known meteorite.

Abstract - The emergence of spin electronics in data storage | Full text - Integrated nanoelectronics for the future | PDF (784KB) - Integrated nanoelectronics for the future

Timing of crystallization of the lunar magma ocean constrained by the oldest zircon - pp133 - 136

A. Nemchin, N. Timms, R. Pidgeon, T. Geisler, S. Reddy & C. Meyer

doi:10.1038/ngeo417

The primitive Moon was covered with a thick layer of melt known as the lunar magma ocean, whose crystallization resulted in the Moon's surface as it is observed today. Dating of the oldest zircon so far in lunar rocks indicates that much of the magma was probably crystallized within 100 million years of the Moon's formation.

Abstract - The emergence of spin electronics in data storage | Full text - Integrated nanoelectronics for the future | PDF (3769KB) - Integrated nanoelectronics for the future

The methane cycle on Titan - pp159 - 164

J. I. Lunine & S. K. Atreya

doi:10.1038/ngeo125

Despite Titan's cold temperatures (about 93.7 K at the equator), fluvial and atmospheric processes are active on this moon of Saturn, with methane playing a similar role to water on Earth. However, Titan lacks a global methane ocean, and rainfall appears to be episodic.

Abstract - The emergence of spin electronics in data storage | Full text - Integrated nanoelectronics for the future | PDF (242KB) - Integrated nanoelectronics for the future